Fuglsang, three times winner of the Tour of Denmark, burst away from a breakaway group of riders and opened up a thirty-second lead before Gerrans and the rest clawed their way back in the final kilometres.

“There was clear plan today to go for the stage win,” explained Fuglsang. “After I lost so much time on the opening stage, I decided to focus on this stage and not worry so much about the time gaps.”

The chase was not enough for Gerrans to overhaul Fuglsang, but the Australian Team Sky man did enough to leapfrog Matti Breschel of Rabobank into the yellow jersey going into stage four.

"We have a short hilly stage tomorrow," Team Sky's Sports Director Marcus Ljungqvist said. "Nothing too difficult but we will be out to defend the jersey. It is great for the morale of course to have the jersey so we will see what happens.”